Oita Prefectural Art Museum

**The facade opens.** On mild days the ground-floor glass folds away entirely and the lobby runs into the street. If it is shut when you arrive, that is weather rather than policy. **Bamboo is the local collection to see.** Oita produces most of Japan's madake and Beppu has been the centre of bamboo basketry for centuries. The craft holdings here are stronger than the painting for a visitor with no prior interest in either. **No closing day.** Unusual for a Japanese public museum and useful on a Monday, when almost everything else in the prefecture is shut. **Three hundred yen and free after school.** The collection ticket is priced as civic infrastructure. Special exhibitions are separate and cost several times that. **The Oita Art Plaza is nearby.** Isozaki Arata's 1966 former prefectural library, an early landmark of Japanese Metabolism, stands ten minutes away and is free to enter.